


off in all directions

by decinq



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternative Universe - The X-Files, M/M, Monster of the Week, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25459168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decinq/pseuds/decinq
Summary: "We had to build a step stool out of newspaper and painters tape," she says. "And when Greg and I both stood on ours and it held put, I knew we never could have done it alone!""Yeah," Eddie says. "I did one where we had to build a tower to the ceiling with only office furniture."Richie turns to him in the back seat.Kill me now,he mouths, and Eddie holds back a smile.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 31





	off in all directions

**Author's Note:**

> i fucking hate cops please don't take this as copoganda, i just love this episode and think mulder and scully are sexy!! this fic's plot and some dialogue are taken from season 5, episode 4 of the x-files, called 'detour.' it's one of my faves because it's scary, funny, and their outfits are wonderful. if you can ignore the 90s cgi, i suggest it if you like to have fun!
> 
> some warnings: corporate brainwashing taken directly from my old job, there's a monster, people disappear, eddie and richie both have government-issue guns, which get used in self-defence but never against people, ponce de leon, there's a dog named bowie he's a-ok, I am always talking about the talking heads, they make me sad. also: hotel-sized bottles of wine, technology taken from the pilot of the haunting of hill house, richie vomits because of a hangover, and makes a joke about bev's period making her moody.

### LEON COUNTY  
NORTH FLORIDA

The sun shimmers through the trees, catching on the last bits of dew clinging to their leaves as the sun heats up the Floridian forest floor. A man carries surveyor equipment on his shoulder, his coworker a good hundred yards ahead of him. Through their walkie-talkies, they argue about construction, Indigenous plant and wildlife, the ignorance of rich developers, and who of them has more mosquito bites. 

All around them, the forest is alive. Birds chirp and bugs buzz and critters scurry. 

“You’re a real moron, Sloan, you know that?”

“You’re a fuckin’ tree hugger, Marty.”

“You should be sad to see the demise of an ecosystem that’s lasted a thousand years. We all should be. Give me four feet to your left.”

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean you can’t?”

“I mean I can’t because it’s stuck,” tugging on his tripod. It doesn’t budge.

“Then unstick it.” Across the thicket, Marty watches Sloan reach down to try and clear the mud from the legs of the tripod.

When Sloan touches the ground, his fingers come back red. Almost like blood. “This is weird,” he says.

Across the field, Marty watches his viewfinder. “What is?” He asks, and then Sloan screams, then disappears from the screen of the viewfinder in Marty’s hand.

Around him, the forest goes quiet. No birds, no bugs. No critters. “Sloan!” He yells, “Sloan! Come on, man.”

Behind him, the bushes rustle, something he can’t see moving quickly in his direction. Marty starts to run, hides behind a fallen log, covered in moss. As he relaxes, he looks at the log, tries to catch his breath.

In front of him, two bright red eyes appear. He screams. 

Across the country, Eddie passes Richie a boarding pass and they line up to get on a flight. 

  
  


### ROUTE 43  
LEON COUNTY

  
  


"We had to build a step stool out of newspaper and painters tape," Janine says. “And when Greg and I both stood on ours and it held put, I knew I never could have done it alone!"

Eddie likes Janine - this is the first time they’ve met, but she had emailed ahead and asked how they both took their coffee, and had them ready and waiting for them when she met them at the airport that morning. She’s polite. She’s boring, maybe, a bit too by the rules for Eddie’s liking, and way too much for Richie’s. Richie is sour about it, thinks “personal and career development” and seminars like this are a waste of time. Eddie has listened to the rant about it a good four or five times in the last week, leading up to their flight, when it was clear to Richie he wasn’t going to get out of it. Richie always gets out of these seminars, but Eddie’s been to more than a fair share, and he… can see Richie’s point. He once had to write his own eulogy from the perspective of his _loved ones_ to recognize the good things about himself. It’s like if therapy exercises needed to manipulate you into giving your labour and maybe your life through brainwashing.

Richie won’t play ball with her attempts at small talk, but they have another forty minutes left in the drive, according to GoogleMaps. Eddie can suck it up. 

"Yeah," Eddie says. "I did one once where we had to build a tower to the ceiling with only office furniture." Yeah, he probably agrees with most of Richie’s criticism of these kinds of things, schmooze events. Richie has called it capitalist pro-government brainwashing. When Eddie pointed out the US Treasury signed their paychecks, Richie had just shrugged, like _someone has to._ Richie’s so far past defeat he lives in apathy, now. 

Richie turns to him in the back seat, nudges him with his elbow. _Kill me now_ , he mouths, and Eddie holds back a smile.

“Oh,” Greg says. “Did you do the one where you can’t say any negative words?”

“I couldn’t believe how hard it was not to say the word ‘but.’” Janine says.

“I’m having that same problem right now,” Richie says, and Eddie elbows him. 

“Agent Tozier, have you ever been to one of these team seminars?” Janine turns around to look at them over her shoulder, genuinely curious. Eddie almost feels bad for her - she’s just trying to make conversation. It’s not her fault Richie is...Richie. 

“No,” Riche says. “I have IBS, and for some reason, it _always_ flares up at this time of year.”

“Well, it builds muscles you never knew you had,” Janine says, turning back to look ahead. There are a few cars stopped ahead of them, and Greg slows down. He makes eye contact with Eddie in the rearview mirror. 

“Communication. That’s’ the key,” he says, locking eyes with Eddie as they come to a full stop.

A uniformed officer approaches them from the passenger side, and Janine rolls down her window. “Sorry folks, it’ll be a few minutes.”

“What’s going on, officer?” 

“Just a little situation is all.”

Richie’s seatbelt unclicks and he’s out of the car in the time it takes Eddie to blink. “Thank you, Jesus,” he says, slamming the door behind him. 

“Where’s he going?” Greg asks, and Eddie shrugs. He watches Richie stretch, moving his arms in big circles, forward and then back, rotating his shoulders. Past him, there’s a public washroom, and Eddie grimaces to himself. He wonders if it’s more sanitary to pee in the open woods or to enter a roadside restroom stall. He guesses he’d rather wash his hands extra than have a tick anywhere near his balls. Greg pulls over into the parking lot of the truck stop.

A woman, who seems panicked, grabs Richie. Eddie can’t hear her, even with the windows rolled down. Richie shakes his head, then looks back at the car. Pats his back pocket, where he keeps his badge. Eddie and Janine both step out of the car, lean against the side and watch him. Richie nods at whatever the woman is saying. He’s a good listener, active, good with people who are scared or stressed. Eddie knows from experience. Greg crosses the parking lot to read a tourist sign put out by the park board. There’s a cross-section of an old tree hanging beside it.

“Hey Neeners, come take a look at this!” Greg yells across the parking lot. “This tree was here twenty years before Ponce de Leon landed.”

She smiles, softly, then says, to Eddie, “We’re going to be late for the wine and cheese reception.” 

Richie touches the woman’s shoulder, smiles grimly, tight-lipped. Says something else, and Eddie hears the woman say, “Thank you.”

And then Richie walks past her and into the woods. 

“Now where’s he going?” Janine asks, turning to look at Eddie as if Eddie has a single god damn clue. Without answering, he follows Richie into the woods.

Eddie catches up to him just as he’s tucking his badge back into his right back pocket. In front of Richie, a woman curly, blonde in a rain shell with _police_ written across the back stands to turn her full attention to them. “FBI? Who called you guys out here?”

Richie shakes his head a bit, and Eddie sees his charm turn on. “Nobody. We just got stopped at your roadblock. It sounds like you had a shooting.”

The officer keeps her face neutral. “Shots were reported, but we have no evidence of anyone being shot.”

“Well, what do you have evidence of?” 

“A survey team working these woods didn’t report in last night. We found one man’s bloody jacket pretty torn up. And this morning, a boy, Tanner, got separated from his father.”

“Yeah, I met Wendy, the mother in the parking lot. Separated by what?”

“It looks, maybe, like some kind of animal attack.”

“What kind of animal?” Richie asks as if he’s any kind of expert. Eddie huffs. 

“I’m not sure yet. I followed good tracks for the two surveyors but the trails became confused as they moved into the brush. There was a third set of tracks leading away. I... I couldn’t identify them.”

Eddie gives up then, can see Richie’s ears perking up like a dog’s. They’re going to be in trouble, missing this seminar. Eddie imagines the frustrated email he’s going to find in his inbox when he calls Mike to let him know they missed it. All because Richie is stumbling right into a potential X-File.

“Couldn’t identify as the surveyors?”

Eddie checks his phone. 4:45. No reception. They could still make it if they get back in the car now. They’ll miss wine and cheese, but they can still check-in. Eddie can probably even get a workout in at the hotel gym if it’s open past eight.

“As man or animal.”

“Tozier,” Eddie says, stern. Richie calls it his Man In Black voice. Eddie thinks it’s just professionalism. Richie turns - Eddie using his last name always gets his attention. He looks at Eddie, eyes trying to say something. Maybe they don’t need the seminar since Eddie knows exactly what Richie wants. 

“Hold on a second,” he says, entirely for the benefit of the beat cops around them. Then he turns back to the officer in charge. “What about the boy’s father?”

“I tracked him all the way down to where he fired the shots. The ground’s rocky, but from the depressions in the underlying soil, I can tell you that he entered the bushes from over there where I pick up another set of tracks.” She points, and Richie moves to follow her. “Two distinctly different sets of tracks that, from the way the ground’s upset, makes me think that is probably where the man was attacked.”

“But no other sign of him?” Richie looks around them as if he can see the forest through the trees. Through his lenses, maybe he can. His prescription is scary. Eddie holds back a smile. “Do you have panther in these woods?”

**“** There’s panther. Bear.”

Richie kneels to look at the mud, an oddly shaped track. It’s good evidence. She’s good at her job. Eddie still doesn’t know her name. “But these tracks look like neither of those.”

**“** No, sir.”

**“** You know of a good hotel in the area?” Eddie could kill him - at least then there’d be a definite murder to investigate. Eddie was looking forward to getting paid to sleep in a nice hotel for three days. A bunch of four-star food. Open bar. An indoor pool. Room service charged to his corporate card. Maybe a free t-shirt. One of those pop-socket things for his phone. It’d all be worth filling out Richie’s expense reports if it meant they got to relax a bit. 

**“** Excuse me,” the officer says, bristling now. “I think we can handle this just fine on our own. Thanks.” She leaves, and Eddie’s relieved. He can probably get a workout in if the gym stays open past nine.

“Rich,” he says, and Richie turns to him. His eyes are bright. Eddie knows he’s already lost this battle. “We’ve got this conference. They’re waiting.”

**“** Yeah. How do I say this without using any negative words, Spaghetti?”

“You want me to tell them that you’re not going to make it to this year’s teamwork seminar.”

**“** Yeah, you see that?” He grabs Eddie by the tops of his arms, smiling at him. “We don’t need that conference. We have communication like that, unspoken. You know what I’m thinking.”

“You can be the one to call Mike,” Eddie says, throwing in the towel. 

### SINEK RESIDENCE  
9:42 PM

On Tanner’s laptop screen, Elizabeth Moss hides behind a car in the rain. Her hair sticks to her face. Runs, either towards or away from something she can’t see. 

His mom leans over him and shuts his laptop. “You shouldn’t be watching that,” she says. She kisses his forehead. She tucks the laptop under her arm. 

“Dad’s not coming back, is he?” Tanner asks. 

“Why would you say that?” 

“He’s a good shot. If he hit what he was aiming at, he’d be home by now.” 

Behind him, his dog, Bowie, whines at the window. 

### MARRIOTT EXPRESS  
9:53 PM

Eddie’s hands are full, so he uses his elbow to knock on Richie’s hotel room door. 

“It’s open,” he hears Richie say.

“My hands are full, dickhead. And what if I was a serial killer? Don’t just tell people your door’s unlocked. Jesus fuck.”

The door swings open and Richie is smiling. “I knew it was you,” Richie says. He’s got his tie off, has undone the top few buttons of his dress shirt, but hasn’t bothered to change out of his clothes. Eddie hasn’t either. 

Richie has the sleeves of his shirt rolled up his forearms, so Eddie says, “No, you didn’t.”

Richie lifts his arm to let Eddie into the room. He ducks under Richie’s arm, tries not to think too hard about that, tries not to think about how Richie smells like the weird essential oils he puts on for flights, like they work better than the Xanax that Eddie cuts in half. Eddie dumps the mini-fridge bottles of wine and the ten tiny Babybel cheese wheels he got from the shop in the lobby onto Richie’s bed. 

“Eds, did you come in here just to cut the cheese?”

“Fuck you,” He says, without head. He wants to laugh. Bad joke. “Since we’re missing it at the seminar.” 

“Party hardy,” Richie says and grabs a mini bottle at random. It’s a white. The reds are all Shiraz, which Richie usually likes. Although the white will be better with the cheese, probably. Eddie makes a note to learn more about wine if he ever gets the chance. Wonders if he can make an excuse to get the FBI to pay for a sommelier course. He should dig through open cases when they get back. Go undercover at a vineyard, maybe. 

Eddie cracks the twist-off lid from his own little bottle. “Although, as the only responsible person here, I gotta remind you this goes against the Bureau’s policy of two agents consorting in the same hotel room while on assignment.” 

“Responsible?” Richie smiles, sits down on the edge of the bed. “You brought me mini wine bottles. I think you’re a bad influence.” 

Eddie sits beside Richie. Sips his wine straight from the small bottle. It looks ridiculously small in Richie’s giant hands. 

“Did med school cover any zoology, by chance?”

Eddie picks at the wax around one of the cheese wheels. “Obviously you know the answer to that is no.”

Richie hums. “What animal will attack the strongest leaving the weakest to escape?” Eddie notices Richie’s laptop, open on the little table across the room. He’s scribbled something on the hotel notepad. “The answer is none. Not one of the over 4,000 species of animals native to North America will attack the strongest when the weak is vulnerable.” 

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“It makes me think that what we’re dealing with here is no ordinary predator.”

Here he was, buying all the tiny cheeses the lobby shop had, and Richie was, what? Doing research? Eddie’s an idiot. 

“I thought this was all a ploy to get out of the conference.”

Richie sips his wine again. “I think what we stumbled upon here is something more than what local authorities realize. The scenario described by that boy sounds to me like a primitive culling technique.”

Sometimes the shit that comes out of Richie’s mouth makes Eddie want to pummel him. He breathes in through his nose and holds it for a three-count before exhaling through his mouth. Before they started working together, Eddie thinks he’d have been hard-pressed to find anyone who would call him patient. But he’s been learning. 

He thinks about Bev, putting Richie in his place once, years ago, when he asked her if she was on her period after she told him off for something; Eddie can’t remember what. What he does remember is Bev whipping her head around. “If you knew shit all about women,” she’d said, “You’d know that they are putting up with so much of your bullshit all the time. Fucking constantly. Our tolerance is sky fucking high. Whether I’m on my period or not has fucking nothing to do with me being irrational, and has everything to be with you being held fucking accountable for once in a fucking blue moon. My patience for men and their shit is high on a good day - and if I were on my period and I freaked out at you, it wouldn’t because menstruating makes me crazy. It’d be ‘cause it makes me sane, you sexist neanderthal. Because it makes me call you on your bullshit when I normally wouldn’t.” 

Richie had actually looked sorry, then. Eddie remembers watching his throat as he swallowed, hard. “You feel better?”

Bev had huffed. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry I said that,” Richie said, sheepish.

Bev had smiled at him, and Eddie was surprised. The way Richie apologized, quick as anything, and Bev accepted it. It was so different to his marriage, still in the process of ending, at the time. He never knew what to make of Bev and Richie’s dynamic, so dissimilar to his own relationships with either of them. Bev said, “I’m not sorry for anything I said,” and Richie had smiled.

Back in Richie’s hotel room, Eddie says, “We’re in Western Florida. The closest thing to primitive down here lives in a beachfront retirement condo.”

Richie’s thigh is pressing into Eddie’s, both of them still in their slacks. Richie’s at least down to his socks. Shoes tucked neatly by the door, laces undone.

“Those woods are as old as anything, and there’s 900 square miles of them. And this is the south! Everything’s backwards down here! There’s no telling what’s alive out there.” He stands, and the bed shifts without his weight. 

“What’re you doing?” Eddie asks, trying to not sound too butthurt. 

“Texting Michelle.” Richie leans his hip against the small desk across the room. His laptop is closed, but plugged into the wall socket under the desk. He would have needed to crawl underneath the desk to get the charger plugged in. Eddie didn’t even bring his laptop with him, committed to _being present_ at the seminars they were signed up for, which were specific instructions from Mike. As a boss, he usually doesn’t challenge Eddie’s social instincts this much, but Eddie was never motivated by anything as much as someone believing he couldn’t do something. 

“Who’s Michelle?” Eddie asks, feeling foolish, maybe even a little rejected. He looks down. One mini-fridge bottle of chardonnay can’t make him this stupid. It’s barely a glass. 

“The officer in charge of the investigation we stumbled upon?” Richie says it like a question. “You met her?”

When did Richie even have time to get her number? “Why’re you texting her?”

“Something I want her to check on.”

Eddie sighs. “You know, Rich, sometimes I think some work on your communication skills wouldn’t be such a bad idea.”

“You want to build a tower of furniture, Eddie baby?” Richie sits back down beside Eddie, bouncing slightly as he sits. He knocks his elbow into Eddie’s arm.

Eddie cracks open another bottle of wine.

### SINEK RESIDENCE  
THE NEXT MORNING

Eddie puts the car in park in the Sinek driveway, and Richie passes him his coffee cup. 

“Before we go in there, give me the low-down on why you woke me up at six in the morning when we’re both settling into our wine hangovers just fine.”

“I texted Michelle, and she sent some patrollers here. They arrive just after midnight. Sit outside the house for about twenty minutes or so. They hear yelling, so they go around the back of the house, and find Wendy screaming for Tanner at the back door. Just as they get to her, Tanner crawls out the back door through the doggy door, screaming at the top of his lungs.”

“He fit through the doggy door? How big is their fuckin’ doggy door? How big is their dog? He’s like thirteen years old.”

“Not the point, Eds.”

“Florida is fucked,” Eddie says, and Richie smirks.

“When the patrolman asked what was going on, Tanner said, ‘It’s in the house.’”

Eddie rolls his eyes, although Richie can’t see him do it with his sunglasses still on. The sun’s barely up. “Good storytelling.”

“He said he was chased by something.”

“Something.”

“He said it had red eyes.”

“And?”

Richie shrugs. “Nothing else. He said it camouflaged into the house. Like it was see-through. Translucent. Camouflaged.” 

Eddie shakes his head. “Alright, mystery man.” He undoes his seatbelt, and heads towards the house with his coffee in hand.

When they get in the house, Richie makes a beeline towards Tanner and his mom, both sitting on the couch. Eddie wanders through the house, up towards Tanner’s bedroom. No screens on the windows, which he notices right away. Fucking Florida.

He finds Tanner’s laptop, opens it. No password on it. A small gift. He touches the trackpad and it comes awake after a minute. There’s a movie paused, fullscreen. When Eddie moves the mouse again, it shows the title. _The Invisible Man._

He takes his time as he peeks around Tanner’s bedroom, and heads back down the stairs, grabbing the laptop as he goes. 

When Richie catches his eye, he turns to Tanner. “Be right back.”

Eddie leans against the banister, and asks, “How’s the kid?”

“He’s freaked out.”

“I think I might have some insight into this invisible creature he said was chasing him,” Eddie says. Opens the laptop and shows Richie.

“But the Invisible Man was invisible,” he says, astute as ever. Eddie wonders if Richie’s already seen this remake. Eddie read the novel in his undergrad. He doesn’t really have much time to go to the movies, doesn’t think Richie does either. And if he did, he doubts either of them would watch something like this, given their jobs and respective lifetimes of trauma.

Eddie can’t remember when the original movie was released. He thinks it’s _old_ old. 1930s, maybe. “Right,” Eddie says. Slow. 

“Tanner said he was chased by a creature with glowing red eyes.”

Eddie rolls his eyes, and if the boy and his mom weren’t just a few feet away, Eddie may have pushed Richie on that. He’s got a hangover that’s getting worse by the minute. It’s what comes with cheap, hotel branded wine. He should have known. He’s tired. Instead, Richie says, “Let me show you something.”

He takes Eddie by the elbow, leads him to the back door through the kitchen. “Mrs. Sinek said she went outside with the dog?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“But when she came back, the door was locked from the inside.”

Eddie’s been doing this song and dance with Richie for years. Knows the steps. Is comfortable with the back and forth. “And?”

“Look at this. We got some tracks here.”

“Where?”

“Here, and here.” He points, and Eddie can’t believe he didn’t notice them before. Five bottles of mini-fridge wine and he can’t do his job anymore. Richie’s still talking. “...dried mud against the tile, tracked in from the outside.”

“That could have been brought in by the dog.” 

“No,” Richie shakes his head. Crouching next to him, Eddie can smell his cologne. Eddie suspects he himself smells like stale laundry and sweat. He wants to shower. Richie doesn’t even seem hungover, and Eddie wouldn’t think he was, if he hadn’t seen Richie yak outside the hotel before they got in the rental car this morning. Maybe Eddie would feel better if he threw up. “You see, uh, the ball of the foot here? A large foot and I count five toes.” Eddie counts five, too. 

He shakes his head. “Wait a minute. I thought you said it wasn’t human.”

Richie stands, and his knee cracks. Eddie stands and feels himself wobble. Richie steadies him, a hand at the small of his back. “Well, I’m not saying it is. The weight distribution is all wrong. People walk heel to toe. Whatever this thing is it walks on the ball of its foot.”

Eddie squints up at him. “You’re fucking with me.”

“No. Stan and I were in Boy Scouts. We learned this shit.”

“So, if it’s not human and it’s not animal, what the hell is it?”

Richie lifts his shoulders, shakes his head.

“Guess I’m a little late to this dance,” Michelle says, and they both turn to face her. Eddie’s not sure if she’s hitting on Richie. Must not be a very good cop, if she can’t tell Richie’s not interested. Although it is the south, so maybe--

“I found some tracks – right here,” Richie says, crouching again.

Michelle pops a squat beside him. “Same as I saw before.”

“Where was that?” Eddie asks.

“In the woods. Weight distribution’s strange. They appear to be human, but whoever left these uses the balls of their feet more like an animal.”

Richie turns to look at Eddie over his shoulder, and Eddie scowls. Glares. Would push Richie over if it wouldn’t compromise evidence. Evidence of what, Eddie’s not sure. “I want us to cool down for a second before we end up on horses,” Eddie says.

“What?” Michelle asks, standing. The corner of Richie’s mouth turns up, hinting at a smile.

“A definition of confusion.” Richie explains, standing and stretching his arms above his head. It makes his shirt pull tight where it's tucked into his slacks. “He jumped up on his horse and rode off in all directions.” He winks at Eddie. “Agent Kaspbrak likes sayings like that.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s attacked three grown men, presumably in broad daylight, disposing of its prey without detection,” Michelle says.

“And it wasn’t shy last night about coming out of the woods to try again. What we’ve got here is a predator with low visibility and a high degree of motivation. Plus, it’s got one advantage we don’t have –” He pauses, ever the dramatist. In another life, Eddie thinks Richie could have been an actor. A big star. A comedian. He wonders if they still would have met. Would they be friends? In that life, Eddie guesses he’d be the invisible man. 

“The entire Apalachicola National Forest,” Richie finishes, and Eddie comes back to himself.

“So how do you stop it?” He asks.

“By identifying it, I guess. Finding it before it finds somebody else.”

### APALACHICOLA NATIONAL FOREST  
4:51 PM

When Eddie catches up to Richie, he’s talking to another woman that Eddie doesn’t recognize. She’s holding a small device, mostly screen. Just slightly bigger than Eddie’s iPhone 7+.

“It’s called FLIR, for Forward-Looking InfraRed. It was originally developed for chopper pilots in Vietnam. This model is used predominantly in the Middle East. Detects body heat at a click away.” Eddie’s seen it before - they use it on ghost hunting shows. As if ghosts have body heat. 

“That’s pretty sophisticated. How’d you get your hands on that government issue?” Eddie peers over Richie’s shoulder, and Michelle’s body shows up on the screen, a yellow, green and red blur among the grey of the forest on the screen. 

“I see you guys have met. Viv’s our local tech expert. Works at the university, so we contract her out. Some people prefer searching with dogs, I prefer an extra pair of hands if I get in trouble. Are we ready to go?”

Eddie turns to Richie, who’s struggling with his phone. Looks like he’s got his compass app open, but the needle doesn’t still, just spins and spins, recalibrating forever. Eddie pulls his own from his pocket. 4:58. No reception.

“Once we start in, you can put away your cell phones,” Michelle says. “ They won’t work. The only communication in these woods is with short-wave radios. So stay close, maintain visual contact. If you get lost, initiate oral contact.” 

Richie elbows Eddie in the ribs like he finds this all really funny. As if they aren’t looking for three missing people. Eddie ignores him. 

“That means holler. If nobody responds, sit down – don’t move. I will find you. Don’t go looking for me. I know it sounds obvious, but folks still get lost.”

As they start into the forest, Eddie falls in line with Richie easily. Even though he’s got a few inches on Eddie, they’ve been partners for almost five years. They match each other's pace even when they don’t try.

“Local PD has all their resources looking out for a transient,” Eddie says. “There’s a drifter who’s wanted for a double homicide in Gadsden, Alabama. They were amused when I told them what we were doing.”

“I don’t think it’s a drifter, Eds, and we may be looking for two individuals.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, that thing lured that woman out of the house last night to separate her from her son.”

“But for what purpose?”

“Divide and conquer. If your enemy has greater numbers than you, you divide and conquer it to diminish those numbers.”

“What enemy would that be?”

“Encroaching development. That’s what I suspected when I had Michelle request the check on Tanner and his mother.”

“You think this is about a housing tract?”

“That survey team was staking out a new 100,000 acre plot. Civilization is pushing very hard into these woods. Maybe something in these woods is pushing back.” 

In front of them, Michelle marks their path with a small, white pebble.

“Anything?” Richie asks.

“No,” Viv says. “No, nothing at all. Not even wildlife.”

Eddie perks up at that. “Isn’t that a little strange?”

“Yeah,” Viv says, and she sounds just as surprised as Eddie feels. “This forest is usually alive with sound. I’m not an expert, but I’ve never seen it like this before.” Eddie notices there are no birds chirping, no bugs. He assumed most creatures got quiet when a bunch of people came bounding around them. Richie’s huge, and he’s wearing some hideous, bright pink and blue rain shell. It looks like it came from a music video from the 80s. A Rob Reiner character, maybe. After leaving the Sinek’s house, Eddie had driven the two of them to a DICK’S Sporting Goods, which Richie loved.

Still, Eddie has no idea where Richie found that jacket. Eddie’s in a sensible grey raincoat with reflective detailing on the sleeves. The girl in the store had suggested it as a good option for visibility, rather than black. Eddie looks over at Richie. His hair is curling more than normal, probably due to the humidity. Eddie’s is too. Some of his hair is clinging to his forehead. Eddie’s hand itches to reach up and brush it away. Richie looks up at the sky. “Well, it sure is beautiful,” he says, and Eddie swallows around a lump in his throat. 

Viv scoffs. “Well, that’s what happens. People get to looking around, next thing they know, something eats ‘em.”

“What do you think killed those men?” Eddie asks. The obvious question.

“Nature is populated by creatures either trying to kill something they need to survive, or trying to avoid being killed by something that needs them to survive. If we become blinded by the beauty of nature, we may fail to see its cruelty and violence.  
  


“Is that Walt Whitman?” Richie asks. Fucking smart ass.  
  


“Animal Planet,” Viv says, and Richie laughs. Eddie hates Animal Planet, gets anxiety when something big chases something small. He understands the circle of life and that animals eat each other, but it makes him sad. He gets confused, not wanting the lions to starve but not wanting the antelope to feel pain. He’s always had issues with that - things hurting. Pain being necessary. He cried when Ben told him the synopsis of _All Dogs Go To Heaven._ He can’t watch the nature channel. 

Viv asks, “You seen the new season? On Netflix?” But before Richie can answer, she stops walking. “Wait, I’ve got something.”

Eddie pulls his gun. Beside him, Richie does too. 

“It’s about twenty yards ahead.”  
  


“Where?” Michelle says. The hair on the back of Eddie’s neck stands on end. “I don’t see it.”  
  


“It’s just sitting there.” Eddie looks at the screen and sees the shape, humanoid. He can’t see anything ahead of them. “It’s on the move!” Eddie takes off in a sprint towards where he saw it on the screen. “It’s moving fast! It’s ... it’s going to the right!” Eddie peels off. He can hear Richie behind him. 

“Wait, wait! Viv says. “There’s two of them now. They’re moving in opposite directions. There and there.” She points, and Eddie keeps moving the way he was headed. 

“I’ll go left,” Richie yells, and Michelle goes with him. 

“Viv, you see anything?” Eddie calls. She’s behind him, somewhere to his right.

“It’s about 40 yards ahead of you!”

“I don’t see it,” Eddie shouts.

“Now it’s... gone. I don’t know where it went.”

“What is it?” Eddie asks, walking backwards towards her voice, gun still trained ahead of them.

“I don’t know.”

Eddie’s heart is pounding in his chest, but his head suddenly feels clear for the first time all day. “They’re trying to separate us – pull us away from the others. Let’s go back.”

They turn back the way they came, and Eddie catches his breath. He takes care to step over a large, fallen log, but startles when Michelle screams.

Eddie turns, but she’s gone.

“Michelle? Michelle?!” He yells. He scans the brush around him, but she’s not there. “Ah, Jeez,” he says to himself, then yells “Richie! Rich, I need help!”

“Eddie!” Richie yells, but Eddie still can’t see him.

“I’m over here!”

“Eds?!”

“Here!” He yells, and then Richie comes barreling through the greenery at Eddie’s left.

“What happened?”

Eddie shakes his head, holsters his gun. “I don’t know.”

“Where’s Michelle?”

“She was walking right behind me. She was right here, and then she was just gone.” Eddie scans around them - the woods are still, and now that his adrenaline is pumping, his heart pounding, it is unsettling. Feels less normal than before. Not only eerie, but actually dangerous. Everything is green and brown and dense, and so little of the sky is visible through the canopy of trees. They should be able to see her. They should be able to hear something. People don’t just disappear out of thin air. 

Viv says, “I’m getting no reading,” as she scans the area around them with the FLIR.

“What the hell’s going on?” Eddie asks.

Richie holsters his weapon, too. “They separated us. That was on purpose. They divided us so they could go after her. She was in the lead and presumably the strongest. They take the strongest first.”

“Take them where?” Viv asks, and Eddie can hear the panic in her voice, rising. “That doesn’t make any sense. You can’t just disappear out here.”

“You’re right. We got to find her,” Richie says.

“How’re we gonna do that?”

“I don’t know! We’ll form a line and beat the bushes. Maybe you’ll pick up a signal. She can’t be far.”

Viv shakes her head. “No, we need help. We need man power.” Eddie pulls out his phone. 6:09. No signal. Thirty-six percent battery. He should have plugged it in in the car. “That’s not going to work out here! We need to get out of here. Listen to me!”

Richie shakes his head. “The longer we wait, the less chance we have of finding her.”

“This is nuts. This is looney tunes, seriously. You guys may be cops, and have guns, but you don’t want to be stuck out here, and I don’t want to stay. We got to go back out of the woods before it gets dark.”

“You’re right,” Richie says, a rarity. “You go back. You leave me the FLIR and you go back.”

Viv says, “We gotta go together.”

“We have to find her,” he says, and Eddie can see him digging his heel in.  
  
  


“If we stay here, they may not find any of us.”  
  
  


Eddie pipes up. “Rich, she’s right. We weren’t prepared for this. We have no way of telling them where we are. We don’t have any food. Michelle had our only water in her pack. Look, I’d like to find her too, but I think the risks of that are just way too foolish.”

Richie pauses, and Eddie knows he’s got him. “All right. We all go then.” Viv relaxes, and Richie nods at her. “You lead the way.”

Viv leads the way, about ten feet ahead of them. Eddie knocks his elbow into Richie’s as they fall behind her. “I don’t have much faith that this device will do us any good.”

Richie nods. “So far all it’s done is split us up.”

“Whatever it is that we were chasing did show up on the screen at first.”

“What does that tell you?”

Eddie shrugs. “Nothing.” Richie hums in agreement, and Eddie wishes he knew what he was thinking. “Except that we’re going in the right direction.”

“Maybe it can regulate its temperature. Do you know of any animal that can?”

“Uh,” Eddie says. “I think ticks. I’ve heard that they can halt their metabolism for up to 18 years, essentially going into suspended animation until something warm-blooded comes along.”

“That’s interesting.”

Eddie scoffs. “Why is that interesting?” He never knows what the fuck Richie is talking about.

“Like twenty-five years ago, the, uh, the town of, I think, Point Pleasant, in West Virginia, was terrorized for over a year by something – killing livestock and terrorizing the people. Witnesses described them as primitive looking men with red piercing eyes. Became known as the ‘moth men.’ I’ve got an X-File dating back to 1952 on it.”

Eddie smiles. “What would that be filed next to-- ‘the Cockroach That Ate Cincinnati?’”

Richie elbows him. “No, ‘The Cockroach That Ate Cincinnati’ is in the Cs. ‘Moth Men’ is over in the Ms.

Viv says, “This isn’t the way,” bringing Eddie out of the bubble that is _Conversations With Richie_ and back to the real world.

“What do you mean?” Eddie asks. He’s usually pretty good at directions - can navigate most places without looking twice at GoogleMaps. He thought they were going back the way they came. 

“Michelle always marks her route with little white stones,” Viv says.

Richie shakes his head, no. “This is the same path. This is the way we came.” 

“I haven’t seen one of her stones for fifteen minutes,” she says.

“That’s because you’ve had your nose glued to that screen the whole time.” 

“I’m telling you – we’re on the wrong trail!” She’s panicking fully, now. Panic is always weird to Eddie, from the outside. “Somehow, we got off track. God, this can’t be happening. This isn’t happening.”

Past her, from the corner of his eye, Eddie sees the trees move. “Everybody stand still,” he says, and they rustle a bit more. “There’s something out there.” He and Richie both draw their guns. 

“Where?” Richie says, scanning.

“About 40 or 50 yards out. Direction I’m pointing in.”

“Viv?” Richie asks.

She checks the FLIR screen. “Nothing.”

“I saw it,” Eddie says. “And the woods have gone silent again. No birds.”

Something behind them rustles, and they all turn.

“I got it!” Viv says.

  
  
“Where?”

“I got it on my screen!”

“Where?” Richie says again, impatient.

“About 30 yards ahead. It’s just sitting there.” Richie walks in the direction Viv’s aiming the FLIR. “What is he doing?”

“Talk to him,” Eddie says.

“This is not a good idea,” Viv says, panicking rising again.

“Talk to him, Viv!”

“Uh, go to your right.” Richie walks another few steps. “It just disappeared.”

“Rich, it’s not on the screen.”

Richie’s chest heaves, and as Eddie watches, his eyes unfocus, and he sees - something. Nothing. A blur, almost a human face, but in the trees.

Richie must see the camouflaged creature too, because it starts to move, starts to run, and Richie chases it. Eddie follows, a branch hitting him across the cheek. Stings. Richie fires one shot, another. Almost trips, catches his footing. Fires again. Veers to the right. Fires twice more. Stops.  
  


“Eds, I lost it. I can’t see it.”

Eddie watches and sees the greenery rustle. “I got it,” he says, and fires off six shots.

“Did you hit it?”

“I don’t know. It just stopped.”

Richie turns around. “Where’s Viv?”  
  


Eddie turns around fast, scans, but she’s gone. “Shit.”  
  


“How many shots did you fire?”

“Six, maybe seven,” Eddie says. There’s maybe thirty yards between them. They need to close the gap. Without the FLIR, without water, without cell service, they can’t be apart. 

“Is that your only clip?”

“Yep.”

“Don’t fire again unless you’re sure you’re gonna hit it. It may be trying to spend our advantage.”

“What the hell is it, Richie?”

“I don’t know. But whatever it is, it’s smarter than us – at least out here.”  
  


As Eddie moves to reholster his gun, Richie gets suddenly yanked to the ground, and disappears from Eddie’s line of sight.

“Richie,” he yells, and runs towards where Richie had been standing.

“Eddie,” Richie calls out, sounding pained.

Eddie jumps over a log, clearing it, lands on the other side to see Richie wrestling with this...creature they’re chasing. It is translucent, almost exactly as Tanner Sinek had described. Fucking Miss Scientology Elizabeth Moss herself couldn’t have made up this one.

“Eddie!” Richie yells again, struggling against an enemy they can’t see. Eddie fires once, does his best to aim when he can’t see the target, sure to avoid Richie’s line entirely. He fires again, and the space above Richie shimmers, a bit, like it’s moving, so Eddie fires twice more, and then the bushes past them rustle, and Richie’s entire body relaxes. Eddie doesn’t have many shots left, short on bullets. 

Richie’s left shoulder is bleeding. Eddie stands above him, gun still drawn. Eddie was never in Boy Scouts - wasn’t allowed to camp out with Ben as a kid, not even in his mom’s backyard. He likes order, likes being a part of civilization. He’s out of his element. He turns the safety back on his weapon, holsters it at his hip. He leans down to put his hand on Richie’s upper arm, away from his shoulder. He’s leaning at an awkward angle, trying to sit up but protecting his shoulder and top of his arm. “You okay?” Eddie asks, and it’s a crucial question, because if he isn’t, Eddie’s not sure what will happen.

Richie nods weakly from where he’s still lying on the forest floor.   
  
  


“Take your jacket off - I’ll see if there’s anything I can do.”

* * *

Richie huddles against a log on Eddie’s right as he tries to spark a fire with two rocks over a small pile of kindling. Eddie’s not sure if it can be called kindling if you can’t get the fire going. Maybe it’s just a bunch of twigs.

“You were a boy scout,” he says. “Help me out here.”

“Boy Scout captain Stan says maybe you should run to the store and get some matches.”

Eddie smiles, tight lipped. It’s either really good news that Richie’s making jokes, or really bad news. “I would, but I left my wallet in the car.”

Eddie moves to sit next to Richie, back against the log. 

“What are you doing?” He asks.

“Trying to open my gun.” Eddie pops out the clip. “If I can separate the shell from the casing maybe I can get the powder to ignite.”

“Oh,” Richie says, kind of hollow. “And maybe it’ll start raining Oscar Meyer Weiners.”

Bad news, then, on the jokes. Richie’s not usually the one to get hangry, between the two of them. “Do I detect a hint of negativity?”

“ No,” Richie says, quick. Sighs. Then, “Yes ... actually. Yeah.”

“Rich, you need to keep warm. Your body’s still in shock.”

Richie pushes into Eddie’s side, leaning more of his weight against him. “I was told once that the best way to regenerate body heat was to crawl naked into a sleeping bag with somebody else who’s already naked.” 

“Well, maybe if it rains sleeping bags, you’ll get lucky.”

Richie looks up at Eddie, a rare occurrence thanks to nature and stature, and Eddie smiles softly. He’s taken his glasses off, which always jars Eddie more than it should. 

Richie is handsome - even if he wasn’t broad and masculine in a way that Eddie simply...isn’t, Eddie thinks Richie would still be handsome. At forty, he still has a boyish charm about him. He has a nice nose. A good smile. His eyes crinkle when he laughs. 

Eddie doesn’t think he has the same kind of charm, if any. Eddie knows he has...assets. He works hard to maintain the definition of his muscles. Eats well. But it’s different - Richie takes up space in a room in a way no one else in Eddie’s life. And even here, in a big, wide open space, curled up into himself in an attempt to stay warm, Richie still feels looming, as a presence. 

“Have you thought seriously about dying?” Eddie asks. 

“Mhm,” Richie hums. “Yeah, once, at one of Bill’s book signings.”

“When I was in the hospital,” he says, gentle, knowing that Richie doesn’t really like to think about Eddie being hurt, being in a coma, being near death. Although Eddie guesses that’s less about death, and more about Eddie being close to it. Eddie feels the same way, just in reverse. “I was angry at the injustice of it and its meaninglessness. And then I realized that that was the struggle – to give it meaning. To make sense of it. It’s like life, I guess.” Eddie's fingers are freezing, and he struggles to get a good grip on the shell in his hands.

“I think Mother Nature is supremely indifferent to whether we live or die.” Richie snuggles into Eddie’s side even more as he says it. “I mean, if you’re lucky you get seventy-five years. If you’re really lucky you get eighty years. And if you’re extraordinarily lucky, you get to have fifty of those years with a decent head of hair.”

“So sad you barely cleared twenty-five years of luck, huh?”

Richie chuckles. “I guess it’s like Las Vegas. The house always wins.”

Eddie twists his fingers, and manages to break open the bullet in his hands. “Oh! Ta-da.”

“Way to go, Eddie baby,” Richie says, hollow and flat. Eddie needs to warm him up. 

  
He gets up to scatter the gunpowder around his make-shift fire pit.  
  


  
“Hey, who did you identify with when you were a kid? Fred or Barney?”

“Maybe Betty, honestly,” Eddie says, just to make Richie smile. “Could never have been married to Barney, though. The kids were cute.” He hits the rocks together again, trying to get a spark.

“But where are they today?” He asks, like he’s on a podcast, and Eddie realizes, oh, he’s actually hypothesizing. 

Richie’s a good investigator - he’s good at getting people, especially vulnerable people, to trust him; he dislikes the institution more than anyone Eddie’s worked with before, although it’s for all the right reasons. Richie feels, deeply, and is smart, smarter than people take him for, despite his doctorate. But more than that, he’s a good storyteller, connects dots that Eddie never sees, is creative enough to think not only outside the box, but into other boxes, too. The rocks in Eddie’s hand spark, and the gunpowder explodes in one bright flash, and then, is gone. The wood doesn’t catch. Eddie turns to Richie, who smiles softly, mouth closed, commiserating. 

“Moth Men? Really?”  
  


Richie nods. “Yeah. But there seem to be only two of them.”  
  


Eddie sits back down, and drags Richie towards his lap. He’s heavy, and Eddie’s arm barely fits around Richie’s back for how wide he is. He shivers a bit, as Eddie tries to manhandle him.

“I don’t wanna wrestle,” Richie whines.

Eddie suppresses a laugh. “Get over here. I’m going to try and keep you warm.” Richie rests his head in Eddie’s lap, and Eddie tentatively raises his hand to rest on Richie’s arm, rubs up and down. He must accidentally touch Richie’s injured shoulder, because he flinches. “Sorry.”

“One of us has gotta stay awake, Eds.”

“You sleep, Rich.” Eddie brushes the hair off of Richie’s forehead. He’s clammy. Fever is a sign of infection.

“If you get tired, you wake me.

He runs his fingers through Richie’s hair. From where he’s got his left cheek smushed against Eddie’s thigh, Eddie can see the way his hair is curling behind his ears. Richie’s hair hasn’t been this long in a while. He tucks some loose hair behind Richie’s ear. “I’m not going to get tired.”

“Why don’t you sing... something.” His voice is soft. He’ll be asleep soon.

“Richie… No.”

“Well, if you sing something, I’ll know you’re awake.”

“Dude, you don’t want me to sing. I can’t carry a tune.”

“It doesn’t matter.” He nuzzles his face against Eddie a bit, shifting his weight on his side. It’s so uncomfortable here. Eddie would kill for a shower and a bed. A clif bar. “Just sing anything.”

Eddie looks around.

“You may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife” he starts, flat and monotonous, and he sees Richie’s eyes pop open in delight.

“And you may ask yourself,” Richie pulls his knees up towards his stomach, but Eddie can feel him laugh gently. “‘How did I get here?’” Eddie breathes heavily through his nose, scans the space around them. It’s really, really dark. 

“Chorus,” Richie mumbles, when Eddie’s been silent for too long.

“Letting the days go by,” Eddie says, and Richie sighs, relaxing again. He closes his eyes, and his eyelashes fan across the space under his eyes. They’re long, as far as eyelashes go, Eddie thinks. Eddie keeps going, slower than the Talking Heads, monotonous. “Let the water hold me down. Letting the days go by, water flowing underground.” Richie falls asleep eventually, and Eddie’s legs fall asleep too, pins and needles, as he hums to himself, tries to imagine the warmth of the sun, still a few hours away. Eddie tries to remember what things feel like --safety, fresh sheets on a Sunday night-- and how things normally are --his tax forms that he left on his counter, that he still needs to give to Stan, the way Richie likes cold water from plastic cups and bottles but not glass. “Into the blue again,” he mumbles. Imagines Richie healthy, the way he looked when they played football in the park near his apartment last weekend with Bev and Ben. Imagines Richie driving, one hand on the wheel, the other halfway out the window, the way he looks over at Eddie sometimes when they’re stuck at a light, how he smiles. Imagines David Byrne’s voice coming out the car stereo, _once in a lifetime._

Eddie hears when Richie wakes up, because he scrambles when he realizes Eddie isn’t beside him anymore. “Eddie?” He shouts, and Eddie lifts his head. 

He waves in Richie’s direction. With his mouth full, he says, “Over here!”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m looking for food. I found some wild berries.”

“I wouldn’t go far,” Richie says.

“Rich,” he says, and moves to walk back towards Richie. He says, “You never left my sight,” and then falls suddenly.

He lands, about ten feet down, on the rough dirt ground of...something. He looks around, but it’s pretty dark. A cave?

“Eddie?” He hears Richie, frantic. “Eddie? Eds!”

“I’m down here,” Eddie yells, and stands, dusts off his pants.

“Where?”

“I fell down a hole,” Eddie says, looking up, and sees Richie’s head as it pops into view.

“You all right?”  
  


“Yeah, I landed on soft dirt .. kind of.”

Richie tries to look around, but with his shoulder and gravity against him, Eddie knows he can’t see much. It’s too far down for Richie to be able to pull him up. “What’s down there?”

“I don’t know. It’s pretty dark.” His cellphone died after he kept the flashlight on too long last night. He takes a few tentative steps forward, but walks into something. “Oh!”

“Eds, what’s going on? Are you okay?” Eddie puts his hands out, touches what he hit. Realizes, too late, that it’s a body. 

“Oh, Christ.” He says, “I found Michelle.”

“Is she alive?”

Eddie checks her throat for a pulse. It’s there, but faint. She’s pale. “Not for much longer. Rich, we have to get her out of here.”

“Is there a way out?” He asks, and Eddie peers past Michelle’s body. 

“I don’t know. I... I’m in some kind of a chamber. Like a tunnel, or a cave. There’s... there’s like some kind of network. It’s like they're connected. Like a sewer system.” Eddie pauses, strains his eyes. He blinks, and sees two glowing, bright red eyes. “Richie…”

“Yeah?”

  
“I’m not alone.” He checks his lower back for his gun. “I don’t have my weapon.”

“Hold on, I’m going to drop my gun down,” Richie says.

It falls to the ground beside him. Eddie bends to pick it up, but startles when Richie falls to the ground beside him, landing on his injured shoulder.

“Jeez! Dude, are you okay?”

Richie groans, rolls a bit on the ground, holding his shoulder. “Don’t mind me.”

“What the hell.”

“Other one was up there. Ran at me.”

Eddie keeps his eyes trained on the creature ahead of them. Maybe ten yards. Eddie raises the gun at it, and Richie says, “Eds, I think--” and then the creature bolts at them, fast.

Eddie fires off three shots, and the creature collapses. Eddie reaches a hand down to help Richie off his feet, and then steps tentatively towards the collapsed body of the creature. “It looks...human, almost,” Eddie says. 

“Is that bark?” Richie asks, and looking at its skin, Eddie guesses he’s not wrong. The creature's skin looks almost like it’s carved out of wood.

“There has to be a scientific explanation for this,” Eddie says. 

After about twenty minutes, they’ve managed to stack nine bodies under the hole they fell through. They’d done a quick survey of the space, and decided not to go too far down the tunnels, in case they got turned around. In case they came across more... company. They’d found a number of remains, in various stages of decay, and some unidentifiable as human or not. They’d found a wooden pole, like a support beam, that read _ad noctvm._ Neither of them know latin, but Eddie plans to look it up as soon as he has internet access.

“Too bad we don’t have any office furniture,” Richie says. 

“If they could see us now,” Eddie says, and smiles. 

“Hell yeah, Kaspbrak. Twenty more bodies and we’ll win the edible bouquet.”

Eddie rolls his eyes.

Then, faintly, Eddie hears, “Agent Tozier? Agent Kaspbrak?”

“Is that Gary?” Richie asks.

“We’re down here!” Eddie screams.

“What’re you doing down there?” Gary says, peering over the edge of the hole.

Eddie looks to Richie, who smirks. Rolls his eyes.

“We’ve got injured people down here,” Eddie says, just as Richie says, “We need a ladder.”

“Right away,” Gary says, and disappears from Eddie’s view.

* * *

Eddie has learned a lot about how time moves differently, working this job. Afternoons doing paperwork that tick by, slow as molasses. Autopsies performed in the middle of the night, time slipping away entirely as Eddie focuses, examines, disappears. Eddie knows that time is constant, and that time is relative, that even broken clocks are right twice a day. Time is a part of nature, and it’s manmade, and it exists outside of Eddie, entirely. 

A number of things happen very quickly, once they’re found. Richie gets ushered away, his shoulder examined by a medic. Someone puts a bottle of water in Eddie’s hand, and he drains it quickly. Michelle gets loaded onto a gurney, and into an ambulance, and Eddie sighs in relief. Tanner Sinek’s father is alive, and he gets lifted into another ambulance. A beat officer phones his wife to let her know his husband is en route to the hospital. Eddie imagines her crying with relief. It’s not often they get to deliver good news. Eddie is standing by the edge of the blocked off area, near the cross-section of the old tree, looking at the park map. He turns to look away, back to it. He’s ready to go home.

Someone in a Parks uniform shakes Gary’s hand, and he comes over to Eddie afterwards, a big smile on his face. “Well, we just got all the credit when you did all the work.”

Eddie shakes his head. “No, no way. We would never have gotten involved in this if not for you.” 

Gary looks over towards where Richie is sitting on the back end of an ambulance, talking to Janine. They’re both smiling.

“Really?”

“Yeah, you see this?” He points at the small blurb on the Parks sign, tapping on Ponce de Leon’s name.

“Oh, yeah. I pointed that out to Agent Stonecypher on the drive down.”

“There was something in the cave that we fell into; an inscription. Do you know any Latin? It said _ad noctum._ ” 

“It means ‘into darkness.’”

“The Spanish Conquistadors used to carve into things as a warning,” Richie says, sneaking up on them.

“So who’re you saying wrote this?” Gary asks. 

“Ponce De Leon came here 450 years ago looking for the Fountain Of Youth.” Eddie says, and Richie smiles. Eddie can see the wheels in his head turning. 

“You mean you think that these... That- that body the one that Agent Kaspbrak shot? No-”

Richie shrugs his shoulders. “After 400 years in the woods don’t you think they might have adapted perfectly to their environment?”

There are mysteries in the universe, of course - Eddie isn’t so dense to think he can ever know everything. He understands, though, that nothing defies nature. Rather, things defy Eddie’s understanding of nature, and there is a distinct difference. Michelle’s team is performing the exam on the body they have. Eddie will maybe be able to get access to the records after the fact, but he knows, unfortunately, how these things tend to go for him and Richie - someone will block something. Some records will be lost. Some clearance level will be assigned. Somewhere, a rug will have new things swept under it. 

“You’re just making this up,” Gary says, not used to working with Richie. Not used to the theory of it all. Gary and Janine are suits in a way Eddie was once. In a way Richie never could be. 

“Why do you say that?”

Gary laughs uncomfortably. “‘Cause, you work on the X-Files, and you just want to write off your hotel.”

Janine joins them, puts a hand on Gary’s arm. “Search and Rescue are still unable to find Viv Glaser or the second predator that you reported.”

Richie shakes his head. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they couldn’t find either one of them.”

She nods, as if she has a clue as to what to say to something like that. “Agent Tozier, I’m confused. Why would they come after the boy in the house that night?”

“These predators have been in these woods for a long, long time. They would have perceived any encroachment on their territory as an enemy, even a little kid like that.”

Eddie turns to look at him. His glasses are back on, but smudged. Fingerprints all over the lenses. “But that would mean that they’d come after any one of us that had gone into the woods, wouldn’t it?” 

Richie throws his arm over Eddie’s shoulder. “And that is exactly why we’re all going back to the hotel together.” 

“I’m driving,” Eddie says, just for the sake of it. 

“Sure, Eds. Whatever you say. But we’re packing our rooms up one at a time.”

“Richie, I need a shower.” Richie raises his eyebrows at Eddie, a suggestive smirk on his face, “Shut up. I’m showering alone.” 

“Fine, but we’re hitting a drive-through on the way. You’re buying.”

### ALASKA AIRLINES FLIGHT 213

Eddie is grateful for the things modernity gives him - showers and Ziploc bags and his airpods. He took his cut-in-half Xanax before their flight, and he's so exhausted he's sure he could sleep anywhere regardless. There are moments in his life and throughout his career that he remembers in vivid colour. When he passed the MCAT, the first time he had a patient tell him he'd helped, the first time he marked a case as solved. There are moments he's proud of, moments that have scared him shitless, and moments he wishes he could forget. Forty minutes ago, he watched Richie wolf down three airport tacos. 

Richie's asleep in his seat, barely fits at all, slumped the way he is, his right knee sticking out into the aisle. When they do drink service, Eddie will have to wake him up so he doesn't get hurt by the cart. Twelve hours ago, Richie was asleep on the forest floor, head resting on Eddie's knee, and now Richie is drooling a bit where his head is threatening to fall onto Eddie's shoulder. It will fall, eventually, and Eddie knows he won't wake him, will let him drool on his shoulder, might even fall asleep himself.

He pauses the meditation he was listening to, opens up his Apple Music app and scrolls until he finds the Talking Heads. Opens up _Remain in Light_ and hits track four. He closes his eyes and lets his body relax. Forces himself to even his breathing without counting. Richie's head falls to Eddie's shoulder, and Eddie leans into it, and David Byrne sings, _same as it ever was, here the twister comes._


End file.
